mcenroe - the ethics ep (P&C008)

Released - September, 1998

Artistst's Commentary by mcenroe

Overview:
This record represented a number of firsts for Peanuts & Corn and myself. It was designed to be a vinyl only release, which was a first. To that end, P&C received funding to help with manufacturing costs of the vinyl. It was also the first record where all of the beats were done on a Macintosh computer. Up until that time I had been using an AKAI S01 sampler (15 seconds of sampling time), so to step up to a computer really opened up the possibilities. I had intended to do the entire project on the computer, and had thus demoed every song in advance of recording. Upon completing the demos, I realized that I should probably do the vocals in a studio. So all of the beats were done at home (The Drop-In Center, where we recorded a bunch of P&C releases) but the vocals were recorded and the record mixed at Private Ear Studios. In return I made them a website. So again, it was the first record that I did not engineer (and also the last as of spring 2001) and the first recorded in a real studio.

This was also my first record as a solo artist, sort of. A few years previous, I had recorded an organ/jazz/hip-hop album called "Emissions" under the name Roddy Rod. This, however, was my first rap record as an ex-member of Farm Fresh. I was pretty nervous about it, to be honest. I had chosen the mcenroe name and had made the decision to record some solo material, but now I was sort of faced with the prospect of starting over. The farm fresh name was one of the strongest names in hip-hop in Manitoba, and there was a fair amount of anticipation for a new farm fresh album. So to drop new material with a new name and with only myself to blame for any and everything left me a bit apprehensive.

Some may wonder why Pat Skene aka Wicked Nut was not on this record. Some even thought there may have been some beef or a harsh break up, but that was not the case. The main reason I made this record was because Pat was not in Winnipeg very much during that period. He was often out west on an organic farm. By the time he got back to Winnipeg to stay for a while, the ethics ep was basically done and he started thinking about fermented reptile, a project he wanted me to be a part of. So there was no beef. Another character who does not appear on this record is John Smith. At the time that this record was written, I did not know John Smith very well. He came to our shows and grabbed the mic here and there. When the record was almost finished I asked him to be my backup on stage, into what would progress from being billed "mcenroe" to being "Park-Like Setting". So if this record had been done 6 months later, both Wicked Nut and John Smith would likely be on it. But I have never been one to wait 6 months extra to finish a record, especially since my original vision for this record was a promo item to introduce people to me, to be followed by a full length album shortly after.

So as I said, the record was recorded at Private Ear recording. I was very focused on having as much as possible finished before entering the studio, so I took a DAT tape with all of the instrumentals and Hunnicutt’s cuts mixed down before hand. I then recorded all of the songs in one night, in the order that they appear on the release. Because the beats were mixed without the vocals, some elements (like the cuts) are a little quieter than they should be. Also, they have a cat living at Private Ear Studios, and as I am allergic to cats, I began to get more and more stuffed-up as the night wore on, although its not very evident in my already-nasal delivery.

I returned a few nights later to mix the record. Lloyd Peterson of Private Ear suggested we use a tone generator to punch up the bass in the mix. When you listen to the mix, you will notice a very warm bass drums sound that is in every track – we used this tone generator for the entire mix. The problem with this is it tended to drown out the bass guitar or other low-end elements and basically disrupted my mix, Listen to focus and you will not hear the bass guitar tone as it was intended to be – it is drowned out by the bass tone.

Once the record was mixed, Bob Simmons of Brandon, Manitoba then mastered it to CD. Bob generously offered to help us out by mastering it for free. He elected to basically do a straight transfer with no compression or limiting on the mix. If I were to re-release this record I would remix and re-master the whole thing to get a more even sound. Another funny thing is that somehow, the beginning of the record was cut off. The phrase you hear first, "I’m going to make a believer out of you before I’m done" is only half of the intended phrase – "I know it sounds silly, but I’m going to make a believer out of you before I’m done". I decided against getting a new master (not an easy process) for the sake of one phrase.

When the record was done, I figured that more than just DJs would probably want it, so I looked into getting it on tape. I had been making tapes for years (I dubbed about 95% of the cassettes that P&C released from 94-97 – about 3000 tapes) and knew that I did not want to make any more. When I looked into tape duplication costs, it was just as cheap to get CDs pressed and they could be sold for more, so I decided to go with the CD format. Again with the trusty Macintosh I designed the layout of the CD. My good friend Mark Kubas got some Negatives made for me and the first Peanuts & Corn CD was being pressed.

You may notice in the liner notes that I had two identities. My thinking at the time was that I was going to produce under the name roddy rod (as I had for my last 7 releases) and rap under the name mcenroe. Knowing that I would likely do more instrumental albums, it would be a way of differentiating the two kinds of records I would be putting out. A great idea, but I decided to scrap roddy rod once and for all after hearing numerous stories of other roddy rod’s out there, and wanting to build on one name, mcenroe.

The cover man was designed by my friend Kent Wilson, who has a ton of little wire animals floating around his house. I didn’t know he had it in him. The photos were taken by Steve St. Louis at the Tuxedo golf and country club in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Many people don’t notice the whole point of the shoot, which is that I am hitting a microphone and not a golf ball with my golf club. I don’t remember the statement that I was trying to make by replacing the golf ball with a mic, or why I chose golf (although I was playing a fair amount of golf at the time) but I’m still reasonably happy with the cover art, and I like how St. Louis takes photos.

So that’s the overview of the record, on to the track-by-track analysis:

Introduck:
This is a long single verse that I had written as a member of farm fresh. I came up with the idea of starting at a slow beat speed and dropping the verse double time, then switching the speed to regular time with some hype drums. A pretty simple idea which I then tested out at an mc competition (Big Mic it was called) and it had the desired effect. The lyrics are in line with the main theme of the record, the anti wack rapper anti industry sentiment which I was focusing on at the time. You can hear me signaling that the song is over at the end of the song, something that should have been edited out.

Resonance:
Probably my favorite song on the record. I chopped up the gutar/bass sample, big drums, chopped keys, chopped flute, and a nice strong structure. The main loop starts on an off beat, which I was really excited about at the time. Again the theme is hip-hop and my place in it – at this point I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I would have to work a job in order to survive making hip-hop music. So I had obtained my degree in electrical engineering and prepared to enter the working world, a concept examined more closely in mid-life crisis. I usually got a reaction to the beginning of the second verse when playing this song live. I still enjoy playing this song live.

Shattered Remains:
This is a song I would definitely like to remix, in terms of bringing the strings to the forefront a little more. When I had the first burn of the final master CD, we listened to the record on the trans-canada highway at 110 km/h and you could not hear the strings at all – a bad sign. I had these verses kicking around for a year or so, in fact Hunnicutt and I performed it when we did shows as a farm fresh duo, although to a different beat. I originally was playing the song with the verses in 4/4 and the chorus in 3/4. When I did the song to a new beat, I kept the beat for the chorus at 4/4, but delivered the chorus in 3/4, hence the interesting wrap around effect that I think works very well. Despite the interesting arrangement for the chorus, the overall arrangement of the song is very similar to Resonance – verse/chorus/verse/chorus/cuts/out. I still do this song live occasionally.

What Have I Done:
First the title – it basically has nothing to do with the song. When I made the beat, I was singing some "what have I done" riff to the beat as a possible chorus that was never done. I like this song, although if I could remix I would bring the bass guitar up a lot more, as well as the cymbals. The effect of the bass and then the cymbals coming in should have more impact than they do. When the song was first demoed, I played it for Steve St. Louis and he pointed out the error in the wrestling term in the second verse, so I thought I could either change it or have someone point out the error – a neat effect.

Another interesting story about this song is the first verse. One night at the Pyramid Cabaret I was catching up with Eli of Mood Ruff. He kicked me a few of his new verses, and then I kicked this verse for him. He was in shock – he thought that I was dissing Pat Skene. Apparently the reference to "mowed lawns and raked leaves" prompted him to thing I was referring to organic farming. But anyone who really knows Pat Skene knows that this verse does not fit him at all - "rolling in a Beamer or an Acura?" and of course he was not the intended target of the verse. I still like the "Living large like Pancakes flipped by Uncle Buck" line.

In the second verse is a reference to a tech 20 – A technics 2000 turntable that my dad owned and was the basic reason that I got into making beats. The tech 20 was the only turntable that the three of us (Tyler, Pat or myself) had with pitch control so I put the beats together. Incidentally, this turntable is useless for scratching so don’t get one.

Focus:
Ah, the first and only guest on the record. Kind of an odd choice at the time, considering I had worked with so many emcees that I considered friends: Pat, John Smith, Garfield and Eli of Mood Ruff, Skuskotch of Different Shades. But it was Spoof who I had hung out with a few times and we talked about doing a song together. This was another first because it paired two crews that formerly had beef (TABS aka Mood Ruff/Farm Fresh and Frek Sho) which was squashed years earlier but still no one had ever worked together before. And spoof definitely came through. The song is again fitting into the main theme of the record, frustration of hip-hop and the industry, but it’s a very genuine song in that both Spoof and myself have a lot of experience with the Canadian Music industry and thus this isn’t the usual "why don’t I have a deal" type of rant. I like "I mean give me cash, turn slo-mo into fast". The patience that an indie label owner must have.

Hunnicutt was disappointed that his favorite cut to perform on the record was on the song that was never performed live, although I did do it a few times solo.

Fishing for Ideas:
A lot of people don’t like this chorus, but the verses have hit home with many listeners. Originally the song was meant to simply be a bit of history of my production craft, but sort of changes mid-verse to a new theme – the phenomena of new people entering hip-hop culture with the wrong motives. I have seen this time and again, a young person who buys brand new equipment and instantly claims to be some sort of authority on their craft, whether its production, dj’ing, mc’ing, or whatever. I have no problem with new people getting started in some form of hip-hop, or moving from the listener to the performer, but in some cases I wonder why when they have nothing to say, nothing to add, no new ideas, and are more concerned with their image then actually putting something out.

I also want to point out that Hunnicutt did the "Something was Fishy" cut, but I did the other double time cut at the end. I say this not for credit, but so Hunnicutt’s name is not damaged by such sketchy turntable work! I usually only did this song for audiences who were familiar with my work and the ethics ep, mostly in Winnipeg and Saskatoon.

Midlife Crisis (early though)
While I mentioned earlier that Resonance was probably my favorite song on the ethics ep, this is probably my favorite beat. That bassline is ill, with some snappy drums. This song was written just as I finished school and learned of my dress code at my new job. When I was finishing my final year I was very worried about finding a good job, and in fact I was resigned to the fact that I would probably have to move away from Winnipeg to get one. I didn’t, I found a good systems engineering position in Winnipeg at Manitoba Telecom Services that involved wearing a suit every day. The day before I started I went out and bought a car, a new 1998 Honda Civic, and I was quite a different sight from the rapper on stage as the corporate day job type. Anyhow, this song is sort of what I went through and my mixed feelings about the abrupt change from school to the working world. In my case it was a good change, my life has a lot less stress now that I have completed school, I can work my 40 hours a week and then really focus on music, something that was impossible when I was in school. In fact, one of the reasons why we did so much less music up until 1998 was because we had school to think about.

Another note is that the "conversation" at the end of this song was pre-recorded at the Drop-In Center. I took two version of this song into the studio to do vocals, one with the conversation and one without. I intended to recreate the conversation in the studio, if I could get the vibe and the spirit of the original, and if time permitted. But as the night wore on, I didn’t think I could recreate the conversation. Something about recording at home by yourself versus in a studio with an engineer listening to every word – I prefer the former, you can really be a total nut and then evaluate later. And so I’m glad I pre-recorded it, I am very happy with how it worked out and I got some funny bits.

Also I really like the loose structure of this song, its something that I have done more of since and really like, the idea of turning the mic on and letting the beat ride, and sort of introducing the song, dropping a verse, and then doing whatever afterwards. Its something we never really tried as farm fresh (except maybe 2600), but as a solo artist and producer I have the ability to do whatever and the only person who has to really like it is me. The weird thing is that this song would be perfect for live improv because of its open structure, however in reality I tend to not be as funny on stage as I am in the studio and so it dropped out of the live rotation pretty quickly, although I did one heartfelt version to 12 people (all beatcombers) at a show in Saskatoon.

Ahm The Original
This would probably be the single, buried as the last song on side two. Of course the hook is infectious. I wrote this song at least a year before recording it, and played it with farm fresh near the end of our run. I had intended to add a verse for Pat and make it a farm fresh song, but that never happened. In fact many farm fresh songs near the end were solo joints, as our writing was in two different directions at the time.

Anyhow, the lyrics are pretty straightforward. I was looking to write battle rhymes and make them as simple as possible – reduced to simple "I’m good, you are bad" type of comparisons. As a result, they are probably my least favorite. They should have been even simpler, or more complex, but not in this "middle ground of battle mediocrity". One lyric that sticks out is "I am a professional like my name was Gary Oldman", of course if you have seen "The Professional" you will know that Gary Oldman’s character was not the professional. That will teach me to reference a movie I had not seen at the time. Anyway, this song got the most radio play, for the basic reason that the beat is hot as hell.

Take Me With You
Hunnicutt and I built this interlude probably the day before I went in to do vocals. I really liked the "Somebody say yeah" bit at the end of "Ahm the Original" and we were going to simply replay it on its own. Instead I had a slow, interlude-ish beat kicking around that I knew I probably wouldn’t write to, so we threw them together to get this as a final point in the record.

Conclusion
I’m still proud of this record, it was a turning point for myself and for Peanuts & Corn and was our biggest seller until fermented reptile passed it about 6 months ago. Thanks to everyone who contributed to its creation and to everyone who picked it up.